Chiaroscuro
by Demaris Jones
Summary: What they are; what they always will be.


It was the terrible hurt he had done her. The harsh, ugly words in that low, cutting tone, so calculated to wound. They had flayed Zilpha's pride and laid bare her guilt. And so she had come here, her feet carrying her without her volition – almost without her awareness.

That was what she had told herself as she fled the house that had become suddenly stifling, unbearable; she had not even stopped to don a cloak. Tears streamed from her eyes, but she didn't need to see where she was going. This place was etched into her skin, tattooed on her soul. She had only to look inward to find it. But by the time she had pushed open the door, run up the stairs, and walked the long narrow hall that led to the small room with its strange hexagonal shape, she knew it hadn't been pain, or shame, or guilt that had driven her from her stately townhouse, but anger, and a hatred so profound she feared she would vomit a black flood of it into his leering, sneering face if she had to look upon it again this night.

To be sure, she _had_ married him to punish herself for sins of which her husband knew nothing at the time. She had been steeped in guilt for so many things – for the unspeakable ways they had known each other, for hating him when he left, for praying for his return with equal fervor, for the despair and madness that had consumed her upon learning of his death a thousand miles away off an alien shore. And so she had allowed herself to be bound to this arrogant, shallow, petty man with his shriveled soul and his clammy touch. She had suffered his contempt and his condescension with penitent stoicism, accepting it as her due.

Until _that day_ when maleficence had walked down the aisle of the old church. There had barely seemed air enough to breathe in his overwhelming presence yet, paradoxically, she felt as if she had suddenly begun to breathe again after a long, long suffocation.

She had sat nailed to her pew, a-shiver with panic and relief – not daring to glance in his direction - too terrified that if their eyes met even for an instant, the secret they contained would flare between them like a bonfire on Guy Fawkes Day and sear everyone in the room to a crisp.

No. It had to be enough that he lived. That they again breathed the same London air, walked the same streets. But never _never_ together. And it was, for a while, enough. She picked up again the colorless threads of her life – comforting in their sameness – and tried to carry on as if nothing had changed. As if the tempest that was James Keziah Delaney had not blasted her orderly existence into a pile of sticks and dust the moment he stepped past the threshold that day.

Ω Ω Ω

The air in the little room was chill and smelled of must. It had been unused for a long time. She set to laying a fire in the grate. The pile of wood beside it was so old and dried it would catch and flame in an instant. She was good at setting fires. She was good at a great many things women oughtn't to be, and she had no fear of getting her hands dirty. Once she reveled in testing her lithe muscles, and as a wild and fearless child had chopped many a tree with her little hatchet, and had brought down many a small creature with her little bow.

But that was a lifetime ago, _in_ another life. No use to think upon it now. No use to think at all.

She sensed him outside the door even before she heard his footstep on the slates. Just as she knew that _he_ knew she waited within. They could always sense each other's presence, even in a crowd. Her breath caught in her throat and her heart stilled as she heard the muffled swish of the opening door. Her eyes darted this way and that, seeking out cover in the room's dusky corners. Then she heard the almost soundless rustle of his greatcoat as he glided in, and her heart lurched madly as if trying to thrust itself through her ribs and fly to him.

Still, she remained motionless, crouched before the fire that now blazed vigorously, throwing shadows that danced across the ceiling.

His aura filled the room – as it did any space he occupied. Where others found it oppressive and threatening, she felt it as a comfort, as home.

She stayed crouched at his feet as he walked up behind her because she knew it would please him. When she felt his boot tops brush the back of her silken gown, she swiveled to face him, the top of her head level with his thighs, not touching, waiting. Slowly, she raised her head, raised her eyes just as slowly, savoring the moment when they would meet his.

Looking into those eyes was looking into a mirror. Although they differed in shape, in color, in depth, in every way – what they contained was the same. The secrets in their eyes spilled forth in stark recognition as he reached down one stained and calloused hand to pull her to her feet.

Zilpha and James faced each other, not touching, for many moments – free at last to speak with their mirrored gazes in their silent and secret language. Then, like magnet and steel they drew irresistibly towards each other, their foreheads touching, breath mingling.

She could not speak, he knew, and so he spoke for her, his voice – so long unheard – a susurrus, a barely felt vibration on her skin.

"James. My James," he murmured. "You live, and so, I live."

He pressed her to him; no one who had ever known him would have believed him capable of the gentleness with which he held her. At first, her arms encircled him and began to slowly trace the contours of his shoulders, his neck and chest.

Soon though, the questing touches became needful, then demanding, then frantic. She squeezed and kneaded him, her sharp nails raking along his exposed neck, soon followed by her sharp little teeth that nipped and worried at any skin she could reach while she still clung to him with greedy strength. For his part, James simply continued to hold her, his eyes reflecting the dancing flames of the hearth.

This was _his_ Zilpha - wild as a tempest – and he the shore upon which she would break. His gentle grasp became fierce, his fingers digging into her narrow hips. There would be marks there tomorrow, he knew, as his flesh would be scored by her hunger.

He tore at the clothes that constricted her body. Ripped down the lace bodice and the flimsy camisole beneath, exposing her small breasts. He crushed them in his rough hands; her head fell back, exposing her throat from which issued a pained moan.

She watched him through slitted eyelids, breathed in the animal musk of him. Her knees bent willingly as he forced her to the thick rug that lay before the hearth. He stood over her, breathing heavily. His eyes bored into hers, then traveled slowly down her exposed body. She felt his gaze like a razor and like a blessing. When he sank down on her, she spread her legs apart as far as they would go; when she felt him at last deep in her, she closed them around him.

At first he was unmoving, his whole body limp, relaxed upon her as on the softest down bed. The stillness in him enclosed her.

When he began to move after a time, it was the slow movement of a sleepwalker, or one drugged. Perhaps neither of them inhabited their bodies as their spirits joined somewhere outside of flesh - on some other plane in some other sphere.

Ω Ω Ω

Later, they lay sprawled and naked before the hearth - now burnt down to embers - James with his head upon Zilpha's sweaty breasts. Her arms absently mapped his torso, reading the many scars – some faint and flat, some livid and ridged. She had kissed and licked and bit them all at some point in their coupling. She loved them and wanted to know the story of each one, and of the black bands and symbols that stood out savage and stark against his pale skin. And she would have time to learn this and more, for she intended that they should never be apart from each other again – not until death took them – and perhaps not even then.

He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed the tip of each finger before letting it drop back to his chest. She smiled at that – loving the gentleness that stole over him after he had taken his pleasure. So like a great beast after it has taken its fill of meat, and satiation makes it generous and lazy.

"These," she murmured into his hair, as her finger traced a pair of long, raised, parallel scores along his left flank.

"How did they come to be here?"

James' lip lifted in a faint smile at the instant memory her touch evoked. She had been, after all, so much a part of the making of those particular marks; to have her fingers, her lips upon them completed something within him – like an unfinished song that now had an ending.

"Were they taken in battle with some dusky, painted warrior?" He could hear the smile in her voice, as the thought pleased her. "Did you take his head and devour his heart?"

"No – although, it was a battle of sorts," he replied softly. "And she devoured mine."

"She! - Now I _am_ intrigued!" There was no jealousy in her words – only an excited curiosity. "Tell me James, was it the price for failing to please?"

He took her hand again, playing idly with the fingers as she brushed the fingers of her other hand through his short hair, scraping along his skull.

"I will tell you, and let you be the judge."

He settled his head more comfortably, gazing into the burning embers. There were not many aspects of his time in Africa that he chose to recall – mostly those memories came to him – unbidden and unwelcome – as dreams, or nightmares, or visions. But there were some few that he held close; they comforted and fed him, and this was one of those.

"After I fetched up on that savage shore, I wandered there many, many weeks without seeing or speaking to another soul. I was mad and starving, sleeping in trees like an ape, killing things and tearing their flesh raw from their bones.

Then the _ found me . Why they didn't kill me outright I didn't know then."

Zilpha's warm, soft breath stirred the fine hair at his temple as he idly wrapped a coil of her unbound mane 'round his fingers. He lifted it to his nostrils and breathed in its scent as he went on:

"I learned later that they believed me to be touched by their gods – perhaps sent to them with some message. But they had to learn how to "read" me, to understand the message. And that learning was – arduous." She couldn't see the slight lift of his lip, but felt it.

"Let us say they _tested_ me; flayed my soul from me and laid it back in again. Through that process I learned much. Much more than I can tell you now. But I _will_ tell you one thing now. That what we "civilized" English shun and fear and call madness is only another way of seeing, a way of knowing beyond the senses. What we name an affliction is a power and a gift. I was made whole and new. No longer at war with myself. Scoured clean of all that separated myself from myself. What remained was only what was true and necessary. _You_ remained."

At that moment an ember burst apart with a loud "pop!" and flew outwards from the hearth in a little shower of sparks, one shard landing on James' bare chest. Zilpha felt him twitch upward minutely, but rather then brush it away he watched it impassively until it winked out. When she brushed the ash away she saw the small, angry welt it had left. She spat upon her finger and laid it over the welt, knowing the contact was both cooling and painful.

"Throughout that time," James continued, "I had thought of you but little. It was as though my life before I awoke upon that shore had never existed except in my mind. But there came one night, as the weather became ever more hot and humid, that I awoke from sleep filled with terror and gripping my cock, which was as hard as a teak dowel – so hard it pained me. I arose and looked up at the moon – round and yellow it was and seemed huge as the sun!

All around me there was sound – a _singing_ that I heard in my head and in the air. A sound that wound about all the other sounds of the night – birds hooting and twittering, the chirpings of a thousand insects, chittering and growling in the underbrush – all blended together into a music that led me away from the camp through the trackless tangle of jungle."

James could feel the beat of Zilpha's heart speeding up, as if she were running through the jungle alongside him as she listened. His wandering hand slid down her body, where he urged her legs apart with the merest touch before sliding his hand into her warm, still wet sex.

"Yet, I followed, unafraid now, my path lit by that yellow moon. I don't know how long or how far I walked that night. It was as if I floated along the ground, carried by that music. But I came at last to a great, bare rock whose face reared up, its summit higher than the trees. We had made many a foray through that wild land, but I had never seen this place before."

As he spoke, the walls of the little room seemed to recede, become gauzy, then transparent, replaced by vibrant walls of green. The air became heavy and humid, fragrant with the perfume of exotic blossoms and the musk of beasts Zilpha had seen only in books.

James' hand had not moved from where it lay partly sheathed in Zilpha's hairless mound. The other snaked up and behind his head, his fingers brushing across Zilpha's lower lip, index finger dipping into the corner of her mouth until she caught it and bit down upon it gently. A soft grunt issued from James in response before he continued – his tone still measured and without affect.

"The music, whatever you may call it, ceased. The silence was absolute. Into that silence broke a sound I recognized immediately, having heard it many times before. It was the growl of a leopard - - a sound that, once heard, could never be forgotten. It contains everything of danger, deadliness and fearlessness. The sound came from above. It seemed there was a cave, at least a cleft somewhere in that cliff face, where a leopard waited.

Whenever I have thought of that night – and I have thought of it a thousand nights since - I know not what drove my legs as I climbed toward the source of that vibrating growl. I reached the cleft I had perceived. It was narrow and deeper than it appeared from below. As I faced it, an overpowering scent issued forth - a heavy musk composed of fur, blood, old bones, decayed flesh and leaves. I stared into the blackness and was suddenly transfixed, pinned by the steady gaze of a pair of lambent, amber eyes.

I did not move, even as the owner of those eyes leapt toward me, struck my chest and bore me backwards into space. I fell perhaps twenty feet to the ground below, the great cat riding me down; I landed on my back, cushioned by layers of dead undergrowth. The leopard tumbled away, but righted itself in an instant and was upon me before I could regain my breath or my senses. It pressed its great paws into my chest as it crouched on me - its weight pressing me into the ground. The razor claws that could have slashed open my throat in one swipe dug but gently into my skin, just enough to keep me there, to warn me to stillness.

I felt no fear, but every nerve along my arms, back and chest seemed afire as I locked eyes with this vision of muscle and sinew. Its breath fanned my face; I could feel the beating of its heart against my own. It pressed its face to my neck, nuzzling and rubbing its velvet head under my chin, over my chest, all the while growling and purring in its throat. Then the sandpaper tongue lolled out, slick and warm and lazy, and laved my face and neck as I writhed beneath it.

My cock swelled hard and tight against the lower body of the leopard. It sprang away, and with my head swimming I crawled to my knees, never taking my eyes from it. It stood, swaying, its head lowered, eyes fixed on mine. Then slowly, it approached and stood before me.

It was in that moment, my Zilpha, that I felt _you_. Wherever you were, whatever you were doing a thousand miles away from where I knelt, your eyes blazed from the face of that great beast."

Beneath James' questing fingers, Zilpha moaned and arched her pelvis, her sex drenched and pulsing with the need for his touch. James' skin was flushed and heated; his chest rose and fell with the mad pounding of his heart. In one swift motion, cat-like in its speed and grace, James rolled sideways, pulling Zilpha with him until their positions were reversed. Now she lay beneath him, her stomach pressed into the rug, her head resting upon his encircling arm.

"Aahh," he breathed into her ear, his grasp strong around her hips "It was just so." Zilpha gasped and sighed as he lifted her and slid his full length into her.

"The leopard turned from me, and I was seized with fear that it would leave me. But she – for I knew now that it _was_ a she-leopard - presented her rear to me, her tail twitching and lashing the air, and crouched down on the sward, front legs stretched out before her, her hind legs braced against the ground. I crawled to her on hands and knees, as one would crawl before a goddess. The scent of her musk was overpowering, and I knew by that, and by her swollen cleft that she was in estrus. I did not hesitate, but rose on my knees and grasped her haunches with both hands. My cock was like a knob of ebony, so stiff with blood and heat, and I plunged it into her in one thrust. The leopard's head twisted back, lips asnarl, her glowing eyes wild upon mine, as she dug her foreclaws into the dirt, bracing herself. The feeling of her flesh surrounding me was indescribable. I glimpsed that huge yellow moon above me before my eyes rolled back in my skull and a howl like a banshee wolf tore from my throat, as I held on to her sleek sides and pounded ever deeper into her. Knowing that, at any moment, she could turn and disembowel me with one swipe of her claws only drove my lust more fiercely. Her panting growls spoke to me of her pleasure, and had she turned on me, I would have died gratefully."

Throughout this speech, James had barely moved in Zilpha, had only listened to the changes in her breathing as his words washed over her. For her part, Zilpha was content to have him fuck her with his voice and his memories, even though her every nerve felt flayed with her desire for him.

"But she did not kill me," he continued. "Although she told me, plainly enough, when she was sated. I suddenly felt her insides shudder and clench about me, and it forced my own finish. My seed shot forth and I felt as if all my insides had followed it, and that my cock would never stop its mad pulsing. My leopardess spat out a long growling purr that ended in a hiss. The next moment, she pulled herself from me and I held on to her flank to keep from falling face first into the dirt. But she was done with me, and swiped her claws against my side to let me know."

James' soft laugh fell like snow into Zilpha's ear.

"Because she was not simply a beast, but also a vessel that held your spirit – your _anima_. And it was then as it is now. It was you I needed, as I have always needed you. I called to you. I reached out across an ocean. I called to you and you came to me - as you always have, as you always _will."_

Zilpha pulled in a ragged breath, her fingers splayed along his side, tracing the scar over and over, her nails scoring the already livid flesh. As his skin spoke its tale to her fingertips, her own memory resurfaced of a long ago night when she had dreamed of James – as she often did. And her dreams were often carnal and full of wanting for his body, his mouth and touch. But when she had awakened the morning after _this_ dream, she was drenched in sweat that held an alien scent. There was a fine soreness between her thighs, and – most oddly, her fingernails bore traces of blood. The strangeness of it was more than she could contemplate, but comforting too – like a secret, and so she folded it away in her brain and life went on. Zilpha smiled into the carpet. The answer to any question in her life would always be _James._  
Ω Ω Ω

She was close. The merest movement on his part would finish her. Finish them both. Still, they did not move. Nothing in the little room moved except the glowing embers that smoldered in the hearth and their two hearts that beat in concert. If they did not move, then time could move neither forward nor backward. Time would stand still and the world could never part them.

"Yes," she said.


End file.
